Meet the star of Key West's 'drag queen drop'

New Year's Eve with 'Sushi' – For 16 years, Gary "Sushi" Marion has taken center stage on New Year's Eve in Key West, Florida, as the star of the annual "shoe drop."

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New Year's Eve with 'Sushi' – It takes Marion two hours to transform into Sushi.

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New Year's Eve with 'Sushi' – Marion appears as Sushi at the New Year's Eve celebration in 2001.

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New Year's Eve with 'Sushi' – Marion shows off the dress he made for New Year's Eve in 2011. Every year, he spends months designing and making the dress for the annual event. He wears it only once.

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New Year's Eve with 'Sushi' – Marion as Sushi gets inside an 8-foot-long red shoe, made out of fiberglass and stainless steel. The shoe is lowered over the last hour of the old year to ring in the new one.

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New Year's Eve with 'Sushi' – The shoe drop festivities were once the place for Key West's gay community to ring in the new year. Today, the crowd is a mixture of tourists and locals from every walk of life.

It started in 1996 as a crazy idea to ring in the new year, but police nearly shut it down.

"They said, 'We have an idea: Let's do a shoe drop. ... We made this shoe for you,'" recalled Gary "Sushi" Marion, the star of a weekly drag queen review in Key West. "'You've got to sit in it for New Year's Eve,' and I said 'OK,' and that is how it started."

So, on New Year's Eve, Marion took center stage inside a massive high-heeled red shoe made out of chicken wire, paper mache and plywood, dangling off the roof of the Bourbon Street Pub along Key West's main street.

Just like the spectacular ball in New York's Times Square, the shoe would be lowered with each final minute of the year until the clock struck midnight.

Crowds started to gather, attracting the attention of police, who tried to shut down the event because the pub owner didn't have a permit.

"(The police) came upstairs to the balcony and told me to get out of the shoe," Marion said. "The owner called the mayor and the mayor was like, 'Leave Sushi alone, close down the street.' "

Today, Key West's annual "shoe drop" still stars Marion as Sushi -- in a better-constructed shoe -- and now attracts attention from around the world.

The street in front of Bourbon Street Pub is closed to traffic to accommodate the crowds. While they wait for Marion as Sushi, a live musical dance and impersonation show is performed on a stage in front of the bar.

"At 11 o'clock, Sushi arrives, and we lower the shoe and put her in it, then raise her up," said pub owner Joey Schroeder.

Over the next hour, Marion as Sushi is lowered 20 feet down inside the fire-engine red shoe made of fiberglass and stainless steel. The shoe is a size 8 -- feet, that is -- with a 4-foot-high heel.

"It is very stable and secure," Schroeder said.

That hasn't always been the case.

"It rained the second year, and my foot went through the bottom of it and I was like,'You guys have to make me a new shoe,' " Marion recalled. " '(Otherwise) I'm not going to sit in it.' "

Marion said the months of preparation for the hourlong show, and the potential danger of being dangled in midair, is all worth it because it allows him to represent the gay community and the city of Key West.

"Every year she says, 'This is my last year,' " Schroeder said, "and I say, 'Oh Sushi, you are going to be the old lady in the shoe.' "

Those of us who love travel know it can be a life changer. Since making resolutions is de rigueur this time of year, why not resolve to take steps that lead to adventurous and memorable trips all year long?